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Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper

Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper Page of 384 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CHRYSOCOLLA.                          89
containing an alloy of silver could best be soldered with this, and was all the brighter at the junction ; but if alloyed with copper, the gold shrunk up, grew dim, and refused to unite. For such a quality, by adding a seventh part of silver and a little gold to the above ingredients, and grind­ing them up together, a good solder was produced.
The ancient jewellers with this mixture turned out much better work than the modern : the soldering in their fine-gold jewels cannot be detected even by breathing upon it. Castellani, that most skilful reviver of the Etruscan style of jewelry, is forced to confess that the secret of their soldering (more particularly in the fine granulated work) is all but totally unattainable. That now used—an alloy of gold, silver, and arsenic—becomes white submitted to this test. The old recipe appears to have been preserved by tradition throughout the Middle Ages, for Cellini gives the ingredients of his gold-solder as: Native Verdigris (another name for Chrysocolla) 6 parts, Salammoniac 1, Borax 1, to be ground in water, and applied to the edges required to be joined with a brush, before going to the fire.
Nero, as the patron of the Green Faction, in one of his fits of extravagance, caused the Circus to be strewed with the powder of this costly mineral, instead of the ordinary sand, cai the day when ho figured there as a charioteer in a livery of the same dye.
the Etruscans were for many ages the goldsmiths of Italy. Pliny's nitrem was our natron, native carbonate of soda, the ancient substitute for soap. It is still used as a flux for gold-ore.
Chrysocolla, Carbonate of Copper Page of 384 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase
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